From makes the best surreal indie pop that comes from Beverly Hills. The band sounds like Nico + Kraftwerk on a Magical Mystery Tour, and the blog covers design, advertising, Swedish music, and post meta fun times.

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from January, 2009

British cosmetics company Rimmel launched a surreal campaign to promote their quick drying nailpolish. JWT, its advertising agency, created surreal sidewalk spectacles — huge bottles of nail polish that seem to be suspended in the air as the polish pours to a puddle on the sidewalk. These bottles were installed on high streets in front of stores that sell Rimmel. Some stores will get a life-sized versions of the scultpure to be placed at Rimmel counters.

If you’re into Ida Maria, you need to check out Adiam Dymott‘s new single, “Miss You.” This garage pop party anthem is the first single from her debut album, due out March 18th by Sweden’s excellent Razzia Records. ThomasRusiak produced the album and plays guitar in her live band, which also features Fredrik from I Are Droid. Can’t wait till this one comes out!

In April, Urban’s staging a one-off installation of Kim Gordon’s Mirror/Dash label. The chain will host the installation at its Hollywood pop-up shop/hipster retail concept Space 15 Twenty (you might have read about it in my Twitter feed in November).

Swedish band The Dora Steins makes fun, catchy indie pop/rock, but I guess that’s obvious from the first word of this sentence. Nobody in the band is actually named Dora Stein – Nathan, Sadbill, Simon, Judith, maybe, but def not Dora.

Giant Tetris, or “One More Go One More Go,” is part of the outdoor art exhibition Live Lanes – By George! It runs till January 31, 2009 in Sydney, Australia. The surreal installation was put together by Gaffa Gallery artists and project team: Kelly Robson, Ella Barclay, Hugh Rutherford, Adrianne Tasker, Ben Backhouse.

Or video anyway. Adrants ran this Daniel Eskils-directed video, featuring a TV that follows the snowboarder on its screen:

Works nicely, though the context is unclear — is it an ad? A viral attempt? A concept clip from a reel? A think piece?

Whatever its purpose, this video does follow the current trend of breaking the 4th wall on virtual fun times. Formula: indoor, watered down, screen-based activity + some nutty way to take it outside into reality. It’s like Kool Aid cocktails or jello shots: you take a fake juice substance and add something crazy — vodka/moonshine/nite train — instead of water. So you don’t get a dude watching a snowboarding video (drinking homemade Gatorade), you get the TV riding the streets with the guy on it (this video). Of course, just showing/being a guy snowboarding is as boring as drinking fresh squeezed juice.

For the record, I like jello shots. I’m not here to contribute to the snark economy.